THE 



September, 1864. 



THE NEW LILIUMS. 



^^ 



OMPABATIVELY few of what are for a season 

 known as " New Plants" ever find their way 

 into private gardens ; very many, indeed, have 

 but a brief season in places confessedly devoted 

 to novelties and curiosities. But there are 

 every year some interesting and beautiful novel- 

 ties eminently adapted for general use, and none 

 more so than those plants which are highly orna- 

 mental and only need a moderate amount of 

 shelter from the rigours of our climate. It is 

 the nearly hardy novelty that first attracts 

 public attention, provided it have claims on other 

 grounds to be received with favour ; and hence we find the introduc- 

 tions from Japan, Northern China, Australia, New Zealand, and the 

 mountain lands of India, enjoying a far higher degree of popularity 

 than those brought from tropical jungles and torrid swamps, though 

 climatal peculiarities alone prevent a full application as a basis of 

 comparison of the motto cceteris paribus. Glancing at the issues of the 

 " Garden Oracle " for 1863-64, we cannot find a single example 

 among the many new plants described which can be considered to have 

 attained to anything like the popularity of Lilium auratum. The first 

 exhibition of this Lilium at the London shows caused considerable 

 excitement amongst cultivators, but the exhibitions during the present 

 season have far surpassed in beauty all that was ever anticipated of this 

 noble species by the most sanguine of its admirers. In the " Garden 

 Oracle " of 1863 it is described as " about afoot and a half high, bear- 

 ing numerous lance-shaped leaves, and terminated by a large erect 

 flower of great beauty, measuring fully seven and a half inches across." 

 At the Metropolitan exhibitions during the past season we have seen 

 plants from Messrs. Veitch with six to eight blossoms each, all pro- 

 ceeding from the same stem, and all fully expanded at the same time, a 



VOL. VII. — NO. IX. K 



